Elizabeth Di Mira is a competitive archer. She loves the focus and calm when she pulls back the bow and locks on the target, striving for consistency and perfection each time. Elizabeth brings that same focus to math and physics, a passion she first felt when she was 10 years old.
“I used to watch documentaries with my grandfather about the cosmos and history,” says Elizabeth. “When I was 13, I discovered Perimeter Institute’s lecture archive and I remember clicking on one about special relativity and quantum mechanics and it just seemed like it was magic, but it was science, and I couldn’t get enough.”
Raised in Waterloo and now a first-year student at the University of Toronto, specializing in math and physics, Elizabeth is the 2025 recipient of the Luke Santi Memorial Award for Student Achievement.
Established and funded by Perimeter Institute, the award is presented annually in memory of Luke Santi. Luke was a high school student who showed a deep passion for research and discovery, earned top marks in his courses, took part in a variety of extracurricular activities, and volunteered his time in the service of others.
Elizabeth was encouraged by two teachers to apply for the award, because they saw in her some of Luke’s remarkable attributes.
“The award described someone with an insatiable curiosity who wanted to learn more about the universe,” says Elizabeth. “It was for someone who really cared about helping others and that resonated with me in terms of helping my classmates with their studies and also teaching lifesaving skills as a swimming instructor.”
After accepting the award, Elizabeth spent the day at Perimeter, meeting the Santi family, talking with researchers, and learning about the Perimeter Institute Quantum Intelligence Lab (PIQuIL). Elizabeth says her future will be firmly rooted in research like the people she met at Perimeter.
“I won’t have answers to all my questions, but I yearn to understand the world around me, and spending my life studying the universe is the closest I will ever come,” says Elizabeth. “I hope to become a professor, as I love doing research and teaching. I want to inspire others the way I was inspired by Perimeter and contribute to the understanding of the universe the way my predecessors have, so that future curious minds will have the answers that I sought. It makes me feel like I am part of something larger than myself, while knowing that I will never be bored with theoretical physics as my vocation.”
Elizabeth is not always thinking about the cosmos or quantum world. Her life is firmly grounded by friends and other interests, and she believes that true happiness comes from the connections you have with other people and a work-life balance. “My friends are incredibly important to me,” says Elizabeth. “I love going to plays and musicals and dancing salsa and West Coast swing.”
Elizabeth says her greatest achievement is representing Canada on the international stage as a member of Canada’s Youth National Team in archery, where she competed at the 2024 Youth & Masters Pan Am Championships. “The hundreds of hours of effort and perseverance preparing for that competition came together at the right moment, and it just felt like all that hard work finally paid off,” says Elizabeth.
As the latest Luke Santi Award winner, Elizabeth joins recent awardees Issie Grecoff who is at the University of Waterloo Faculty of Mathematics, Ananda Thomlinson who is furthering her studies at the University of British Columbia and Keegan Riggs, a third-year astrophysics student at Saint Mary’s University, Nova Scotia. Each embodies the curiosity, commitment and creativity that made Luke Santi special.
Elizabeth hopes to carry that torch, whether it’s solving the great mysteries of the universe, teaching swimming and lifesaving, dancing, archery or hanging with friends, it’s being creative in everything that binds her life.
“I think creativity counts as a superpower. It’s so useful in so many ways,” says Elizabeth. “It’s essential to understanding things that initially seem complex. It pushes my brain in everything I do, in all my interactions and, yes, I do think I have some creativity but would never say no to more.”
À propos de l’IP
L'Institut Périmètre est le plus grand centre de recherche en physique théorique au monde. Fondé en 1999, cet institut indépendant vise à favoriser les percées dans la compréhension fondamentale de notre univers, des plus infimes particules au cosmos tout entier. Les recherches effectuées à l’Institut Périmètre reposent sur l'idée que la science fondamentale fait progresser le savoir humain et catalyse l'innovation, et que la physique théorique d'aujourd'hui est la technologie de demain. Situé dans la région de Waterloo, cet établissement sans but lucratif met de l'avant un partenariat public-privé unique en son genre avec entre autres les gouvernements de l'Ontario et du Canada. Il facilite la recherche de pointe, forme la prochaine génération de pionniers de la science et communique le pouvoir de la physique grâce à des programmes primés d'éducation et de vulgarisation.
